The Bainbridge Island Swim Club (BISC) is dealing with the aftermath of an investigation into Kyle Harris that determined no allegations of misconduct warranted terminating the 29-year-old head coach.
Harris amassed 21 allegations of misconduct in less than a year since taking over the BISC program located just outside Seattle, Washington. The accusations range from SafeSport boundary violations, racism, harassment, intimidation and bullying of swimmers, and harmful training tactics. However, a 160-page investigative report authorized over the summer by the Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District that oversees BISC ultimately concluded that the swimmers are safe under Harris.
“We had some parents that made some allegations that we took very seriously,” said Terry Lande, executive director for Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District. “We asked (the investigator), ‘Do you see any issues with this person where kids are in danger, he’s a predator, any sort of those kind of things? He said, ‘Absolutely not, absolutely not.’”
“People have decisions to make,” Lande added. “They don’t have to agree with the park district.”
More than a dozen BISC swimmers have quit the club due to concerns surrounding Harris and the decision to retain him as head coach. Several swimmers told the Kitsap Sun that Harris “made inappropriate comments about their bodies and choice of clothing, questioned their showering practices, lurked and listened outside the female locker room, and, at times, refused to allow female swimmers to use the bathroom.” He also used an exertion scale that measured changing skin color for white swimmers and allegedly yelled at a female swimmer, “When I yell at you, you should flinch.”
Harris denied allegations of violating SafeSport rules, being sexist or racist in his coaching, and bullying swimmers. He also said he stopped utilizing changing skin color to measure athlete exertion, instead implementing a numerical system. During the investigation this summer, he wrote a letter to Bainbridge Island Metro Parks and Recreation District leadership.
“My primary focus remains … the health and safety of all my swimmers,” part of the letter reads. “Then comes culture, integrity, character, confidence, a commitment to process, and finally teaching and instructing what is needed to be competitive in the sport of swimming. At the end of it all, once you swim for me, I am going to do my best to take care of you always.”
The mass exodus is devastating for a BISC program that showed so much potential just a year ago.
Last year, Bainbridge High School’s girls team took down the meet record for most points at the Class 3A state championship. A month later, BISC swept all 20 events at the Pacific Northwest 13-14 Winter Short Course Championships. Six swimmers from that squad — Alexa McDevitt, Tierney Lenahan, Sammy Segerson, Sophie Segerson, Clare Watson, and Gracyn Kehoe — were no longer attached with BISC when they competed at this year’s Winter Juniors in Austin, Texas.
“This is his job. His job should have professional standards,” said Mike McDevitt, Alexa’s father. “When he fails to meet his professional standards, that should be a problem for his employer. When failing to meet those standards involves putting children at risk in a variety of ways, with varying degrees of seriousness, that’s an even bigger problem.”
“By staying, you are giving permission for it to continue,” another parent said.
Harris also attended Winter Juniors earlier this month with the BISC swimmers who remained with the club. He has a group of supporters within the program who believe the push for his removal is being driven by a small number of detractors.
“It’s heartbreaking, the destruction of the swimming community on Bainbridge Island,” one parent said. “It’s terrible.”
Another article highlighting one of the many reasons I left coaching in 2000 and never looked back. It’s a shame because I really loved swimming and coaching, but the psychopathic parents were unbearable. This level of stupidity never happened to me, but I can see how easily it can occur. Young coaches, take my advice and get out while you can. It was terrible in the late 90’s and has only gotten many many times worse. Sad thing is it will keep going in that direction. Hopefully one day some trust fund coach will fall under false allegations like this and sue the hell out of parents.
Rather than waiting for a trust fund coach to show up lets have clubs add a legal defense fund charge to the monthly dues, especially since USA swimming and safe sport don’t have the “balls, bollocks, courage, machismo, chutzpah” to protect those who keep the sport learnable for everyone.
I’ve known Kyle for more than 5 years now. I was an assistant coach when he was the head coach of the club team in Bozeman Montana. After reading this, I continue to fully support him and his coaching. It makes me sad that his name will forever be associated with this whole ordeal. Kyle is a fantastic coach who is super passionate about the sport of swimming. In no way is he “a threat” to any of his athletes. People may not agree with his methods or his personality but he cares about what important. Teaching principles that kids will carry though out their lives. 10 years ago his methods would have reflected the average swim coach/swim team atmosphere.… Read more »
I went through this as a new coach. It is a bunch of parents that left the program, and are now doing what they can to tarnish the reputation of the club they left. It’s not new. When we hired a new assistant, parents from her old team did the same thing. It was disgusting honestly. If you feel the need to do the best for your children, that’s great…there is no need to piss on the floor on the way out.
It doesn’t matter if you are the 2nd coming of Fred Rogers — if you coach long enough, you will eventually encounter a parent or swimmer who doesn’t mesh with your coaching style and decides to get vocal about it. Some are content to simply complain in the stands, while others go thermonuclear and start alleging misconduct. Things aren’t going to change until more coaches start lawyering up over false allegations. Unfortunately, defamation cases are extremely hard to win and most coaches don’t have the time or resources for such a legal endeavor.
Safesport and USA Swimming have both made it very clear that they have no interest in assisting anyone who falls victim to a false allegation of misconduct,… Read more »
If USA swimming and safesport won’t step up perhaps it’s time clubs provide coach’s with insurance to pay legal expenses for issues like this?
Ex-BISC girls are also mainly why BCST is even still somewhat thriving at a senior level. Without them, BCST has just a few nationally competing swimmers after so many graduated and left for other teams in the LSC, yet BCST loves taking credit for the BISC developed swimmers…
To everyone saying these are BS you clearly haven’t swam with this man. I swam with him at a club he coached a couple years ago and these allegations were as true then as they are now. Many of us left that team too because of his inappropriate behaviors and the tardiness alone is enough reason to warrant termination, nevermind listening outside a girls locker room to later confront them about talking about him. His coaching “style” is abuse and that’s the end of story.
Yeah u can change ur name but it’s still obvious ur one of the girls’ parents. Especially since on his previous team he was the age group coach so this story you crafted doesn’t even make factual sense. Nice try tho! Happy holidays!
I don’t doubt the allegations in this article or your experience. Problem is, the allegations are not abuse. They are from locker room lurkers seeking an exemption from coaching supervision. It is not enough to fire coaches. How about, don’t make problems that require coaching supervision. Simple. Fixed. Swim coaches scream at swimmers almost daily. They bark, yell, cajole… about every day. Coaches also supervise athletes who are misbehaving. It is actually their job responsibility.
Yeah that was my take on it too. These things probably happened all happened, it just reeks of vindictive parents embellishing routine coaching into abuse. Sadly, this is surprisingly easy to do. The kid who has to sit out for disrupting practice becomes a victim of “alienation”. Raising your voice so that athletes can actually hear you becomes “yelling at the swimmers all the time”. Telling a swimmer they can’t plan their bathroom break for the most difficult part of the set becomes “denying bathroom breaks”.
Anyone who has encountered a vindictive swim parent or two in their lives can see right through these allegations. There’s certainly no, “The coach found out I was suicidal and responded by calling me… Read more »
“made inappropriate comments about their bodies and choice of clothing” = Body image comments can be very damaging. Not enough detail here though.
“Questioned their showering practices” = showering too long? making problems in the shower that requires constant monitoring?
“Lurked and listened outside the female locker room” = yup, too much time in the locker room and/or making problems inside the locker room. Get it moving.
“Refused to allow female swimmers to use the bathroom” = This confirms the problem is these girls, not a coach perving out. Not rocket science. We had a 11-12 NAG record holder on our team who would bail to the bathroom mid-practice for long periods of time. All the time. Was… Read more »
I would say to those who don’t agree with coach Harris’s style that moving to another team seems to have been in your best interest. However to try and keep this issue going, and trying to make it bigger and bigger when it is officially a dead issue is only going to alienate future coach’s, swimmers and their parents. As you are currently seeing at the clubs you have moved to. I hope both swimmers and parents can grow up and move on before it damages your reputations to the point no one wants you on their team.
As someone who has swam under Coach Harris and with these girls, I can say wholeheartedly that Kyle is a coach that genuinely cares about the wellbeing of his swimmers. When he came on, it was a big adjustment from the previous coaching. As a fellow member of the national level team, it was very easy to watch the girls and their families grow distasteful of Coach Harris’s shift toward arguably more team-oriented coaching, losing their special treatment they had been receiving with the previous coaching. Everything that has been said about Kyle has been a ploy from these girls’ pathetic parents. I had meetings with the parks department at the beginning of the investigation with a number of other… Read more »
Well said.